It’s one of the most dreaded scenarios that you can ever encounter.  You’re at some social function, a birthday dinner or a cocktail party, and everyone you meet is, well…smarter than you.  It isn’t like you’re an idiot or anything; you just want to have a conversation about the latest episode of Jersey Shore and all everyone wants to talk about is J.D. Salinger (who just died or something) and keeps mentioning Catcher in the Rye.  And you think baseball is boring, so you never read it and everyone gives you looks of pity and disgust.  Thankfully, with these helpful rules and advice, you’ll never have to suffer through such an experience ever again.  You’ll know how to act well read.

You don’t have to actually read the books, just about them.

Reading books takes time and concentration, and you have neither.  You can look up the plots to classic titles on Wikipedia, flip through the New York Times Book Review to learn about the latest releases, and cruise through bookstores every now and then to read the backs of random books.  This will give you just enough material to work with in conversation; you’ll be able to list main characters and themes along with the settings and main plot points or two.  Oh, and NEVER use the movie version of a book as the source of reference—Hollywood changes everything, including endings.

Be part of the conversation.

People who don’t know what’s being talked about don’t participate in the conversation.  Think about when you were a little kid and your parents talked about politics or world events over dinner—you didn’t add to the discussion because you knew nothing about it.  This is also the riskiest part of pretending to be well read.  You’re in danger of exposing yourself as not knowing what the hell you’re talking about, because…well, you don’t.  Hopefully, if you followed the previously mentioned step, you’ll have enough to work with.  The rest of these rules will help you survive the discussion.

Never admit to not knowing an author.

So, you’ve waded into the conversation and, despite your research, someone mentions a writer you’ve never heard before.  Don’t ask, “Who’s that?”  It does seem a little obvious, but even those that actually read a lot break this rule.  Remain passive when a novelist you’re not familiar with is being praised (Though a nod every now and then along with an affirmation of “Yeah, he’s good,” doesn’t hurt.) And if asked directly whether you’ve read a specific title of his work, respond with “I’ve only read his short fiction.”

Agree with whoever actually read the book and don’t ask questions.

“I pretended to read many books back in college,” my friend Jane admits, “but I definitely don’t remember how I pulled it off other than agreeing with the individuals and laughing when they were saying, ‘and do you remember the crazy part when so and so did this and that?’”  It goes without saying that if someone is recounting what happened in a book you haven’t read, you should just go along with what they’re saying. But there is the temptation to take it too far and expose yourself with just one little logical assumption (that turns out to be false) or too much praise.  Something a book publicist friend (who wishes to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons) found out the hard way. “I told the author I was so glad his book had a happy ending,” she says, “and he replied, ‘The main character gets shoved through a woodcutter.’ Whoops.”  Which brings us to out final rule…

Stick to what you know for sure.

So you’ve done your research, joined the conversation, haven’t admitted to not knowing any writer-y names thrown around, and are agreeing with everything being said—and it’s working.  You may feel like the greatest con artist the world has ever known and cocky enough to try and make something up—DON’T.  It’s a classic mistake; just stick to what you know.   “When talking about books I try to stick to books that are based on real events,” explains my friend Sean.  “Especially events in which I know how they worked out, i.e. the Titanic, civil war, you get the picture.  This way I can talk about the book by talking about what happened.”

Using my system, you’ll be able to navigate any conversation with a bibliophile with the greatest of ease.  Now, some critics may argue that truly being a “well read” person is not about the amount of reading you’ve done, but more about being open to discovering new books and writers.  They’ll even go so far as to say that discussions about books shouldn’t be to “prove” what you’ve read, but rather what you haven’t. They’ll say that you have to rise above your ego and freely admit what you don’t know, so as to discover and share books and authors that can change lives.

But what do those people know? They don’t even know who Snooki is.

I have been meaning to write this post for a while now because it’s something I think about daily, something that has become unavoidable in my life. If you go back and read my post about getting an MFA, you’ll see that I don’t regret going to graduate school for writing or the loaned money that it cost me. But just because I don’t regret it, that doesn’t mean I’m content with the consequences. I know many people who made the choice to pursue a writing degree and are now completely underwater in loans with little hope of surfacing in the near future. To think that you’re going to spend the next ten or fifteen years paying the minimum payment, accruing compounded interest that will eventually double the original size of the loan, is something that, I think, can seriously hinder a young writer’s inspiration. True, writers throughout time have struggled financially and it could be argued that it positively influenced their work (Faulkner, for example). But their financial troubles were more along the lines of “how can I pay rent, how can I eat, how can I drink this month” and not “how am I going to do all that and pay $500 in student loans on top of it.” What it all comes down to is that young writers are doing themselves a great disservice by taking on so much debt and unless you have a hustle outside of writing that pays well, you may never get out of that debt.

Universities are learning what a great money-maker the MFA is, which is why more and more MFA programs start up every year. Despite the economic issues we’re having right now, it’s still incredibly easy for students to get loan money. This is a recipe for financial ruin. What’s even worse is that the demand is there for the MFA; search the internet and you will find blogs dedicated to people applying for an MFA, complete with stories of a young writer not being accepted year after year but wanting so bad to get an MFA that he or she will continue applying every year until they are finally admitted. You don’t think universities notice this? If there is a student willing to take out some loans to go to school for a degree that confers on you almost nothing (in a job possibility sense), universities will create a program to cater to that student to increase their revenue. I’m not trying to paint universities as demons, they do indeed want you to learn and expand yourself, but they are businesses first. Don’t ever forget that.

Very few writers actually make good money; writing should be about the words, not about any financial reward that comes from it. If you get into writing thinking you’ll earn a livable wage from it, enough to support a family and buy a house and have all the conveniences of modern life, you will be in for a surprise. Many people do make money from writing, but they are still a small percentage of the total pool of writers in existence who make nothing. Being successful in writing is hard enough, so don’t purposefully put another roadblock in your way in the form of debt. If I learned anything from my time in an MFA program it’s that your writing, the way you approach it and the places it can lead you, are wholly up to you. You don’t need to drop loads of cash that you don’t have to buy the time to write — you have that time to write right now.

I’m lucky. I have abilities outside of writing that allow me to earn a good living and as such I am taking an aggressive stance on repaying my student loans. I’ve reached a point where I just hate that I’m in debt, it makes me feel trapped, and I want to pay it off sooner than later. When I finally claw myself out of the hole that debt is, I know the air will be much cleaner and I will feel much more liberated. Why? Because I will have far fewer monthly bills, allowing me to instead spend that money on something worthwhile… like life.

This talk of Writer’s Poverty reminded me of Jessi’s post from a few months back questioning why aspiring writers don’t read more literary journals. This was quite a popular essay and even got us linked on the Huffington Post. In her entry Jessi speaks to the contradiction that literary journals want you to read their publications before submitting, but if a writer were to subscribe to all the journals to which he or she might want to submit they would go broke in the process. There is no possible way that every writer who submits to a journal could actually afford to read that journal.

I used to subscribe to a handful of journals, most notably the Paris Review and Zoetrope: All-Story. I ended my subscriptions because, essentially, the work they printed bored me. That’s not to say I was completely unimpressed by anything published in these magazines; I was, however, more often than not nonplussed about each issue as a whole. But I’m willing to give the whole thing another shot.

So I think I’m going to subscribe to some literary journals. I have, for a few years now, wanted to subscribe to The Sun. Every opportunity I’ve had to read one of their publications left me happy I had cracked their covers. It’s also a boon to their journal that they publish monthly and are completely ad-free. But beyond that, I’m not sure to which journals I want to subscribe. Ultimately, I’m looking for some cutting edge work that actually excites me. I’m fatigued by the “me-me-me” writing style about privileged and disaffected youth that seems to permeate the world of the modern short story, so any journal that publishes that kind of stuff is out. I’m also not a big fan of a magazine like the New Yorker… granted, they publish some really great journalism but I, however, am more interested in fiction. I think the New Yorker publishes very safe fiction. But I also don’t want to read stories aping some sort of post-modernist style that don’t really have anything to say; that screams to me safe masquerading as rebellious. So where, dear reader, should I look?

I’ve been dissatisfied with the novels I’ve been reading lately (Nightwood by Djuna Barnes and I’ve Been Down So Long, It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Farina for two) and literary journals could be the perfect thing to read on my daily commute. I’m thinking of subscribing to maybe five different journals. Let’s count the Sun as number one. Four more to figure out.

If there was ever anyone’s ire you should avoid, it was Hunter S. Thompson’s. The man knew how to vent his frustrations. So when the late author’s “DVD, uh… I don’t know what the hell brand it is” doesn’t work the way he anticipates, and all the new wiring causes massive confusion with his own audio/video system, he gives the company who installed it for him an earful on their answering machine. After some yelling of expletives and threats, he finally concedes that if they don’t do something about this problem immediately he will write something nasty about them. “Go to any bookstore, any magazine rack and look, you can see what the fuck I can do to you. And I will!”

Edit: There’s been some skepticism about the authenticity of this recording around the internet. Some argue that it doesn’t exactly sound like a phone recording would and that Thompson’s voice was a little bit deeper than what the recording purports; maybe these people have accepted Johnny Depp’s Thompson as the truth? Still, the attitude is there and the flow of thought sounds, to me at least, to be authentic. The way he moves from one thought to another, how he speaks to someone in the room with him, how he gets flustered as his anger leads him places… What do you think?

Thanks to Gizmodo.

Mark your calendars.  If you didn’t know, the nook, Barnes & Noble’s eReader is finally available this week since it sold out immediately after its November unveiling.  According to an announcement by the behemoth bookseller on Monday, its online store would have the nook (purposely spelled with lowercase “n”) for sale and that stock would begin shipping out to its stores, nationwide, throughout the week. Reviews of the nook have ranged from “pretty great” to “long on promises and short on delivery.” Its dual display, a touch screen for navigation and an e-ink monitor for reading have give some to wonder if  it a could be a “Kindle Killer.”

When I asked Doug Gottlieb, Barnes & Noble’s Vice President of Digital Devices, via e-mail what made the nook so different from all the other digital readers on the market (including the Kindle), he claimed that it started with making the technology around the user, not the other way around. “With nook, we’ve created an eBook reader that provides an immersive and intuitive reading experience,” he wrote back, adding:  “Our device puts the focus on the consumer, not the technology.  Using a combination of color and touch, we make eReading simple, even for the tech novice.”  Gottlieb also pointed out that being tied in with the Barnes & Noble brand “gives us an excellent opportunity to expand the market for eReading.”

So is the nook worth all the hype? Well, whether or not you remember, I’m a big Kindle guy.  And after spending some time playing around with the in-store model, there doesn’t seem to be much of difference. It takes a millisecond or two longer than my first gen Kindle to load a page.  The touch screen is pretty sweet and a great way to navigate (a big step up from the Kindle’s clunky keyboard) but takes some time to get used to.  For me the key feature that stuck out was the book’s LendMe program.

“We know our customers love to read, so our approach to design focused on creating an immersive reading experience,” explained Gottlieb, “one that provides the same joys of reading and sharing a physical book.  With LendMe technology, nook lets you lend eBooks to friends free of charge for up to two weeks at a time.  You just choose the book you want to share, then send it to your friend’s nook, compatible eBook readers, or B&N eReader-enabled iPhone and iPod touch, select Motorola and BlackBerry smartphones, Mac or PCs.” Alright, brand loyalties aside… that’s freaking cool!  I’m pretty sure that’s how George Jetson recommended books to Jane, his wife.

When it comes down to it, is the nook better than the Kindle?  It’s arguable.  But with a wireless delivery system and an exhaustive eBook catalogue (as with the Kindle), the nook is definitely competitive. So mark you calendars, because starting this week: the new reader is finally in town.

One of the things I’m reading right now is The Habit of Being, the collected volume of Flannery O’Connor letters edited by Sally Fitzgerald.

In a January, 1949 letter to her agent, Elizabeth McKee, O’Connor  notes that “James Ross, a writer who is here [at Yaddo], is looking for an agent.  He wrote a very fine book called, They Don’t Dance Much.  It didn’t sell much.  If you are interested in him, I daresay he would be glad to hear form you.  Right now he wants to sell some stories he is reworking.”  Don’t we all.

For much of 1949, O’Connor was in conflict with Rinehart over Wise Blood. We all know who she became in the years to follow, but They Don’t Dance Much (originally published by Houghton Mifflin in 1940), like Ross, seems to have only grown in obscurity.  Obscure might not quite equal lost, but by 1975, Southern Illinois University dubbed They Don’t Dance Much lost enough for reprint in their Lost American Fiction series.  This book is also mentioned by Raymond Chandler in in his collected letters, and the (count them!) three reviews on Amazon are overwhelmingly positive.

Since before my time in Divinity School, I’ve been fascinated by the idea of lost texts, missing sources, and phantom documents.  Things we only know about because they’re quoted or listed in still-extant works.  They Don’t Dance Much feels like one of those pieces, so when I found out that it actually exists, I ordered it.  I’ll review it here in the coming weeks.

It took Ross 35 years to go from obscure to lost and back.  What books first published in 1975 have a similar story now, 35 years hence, and deserve another look?